ABSTRACT
World War I and the prevailing wartime mode of employing organised violence for national political ends provided for separatists, such as those in Ireland and India, the most opportune moment to strike for freedom from the British Empire. This “global moment” gave rise to a series of overlapping and mutually beneficial networks between Irish and Indian radical nationalists. The year 1916 witnessed the intensification of transnational relations and anti-British collaboration between sets of nationalists from both independence movements. The types of connections and interactions described in this chapter were not transient. Instead, they represented continuities from earlier periods and indeed they outlasted the war itself. However, within the context of the war and especially 1916, they assumed a new dimension in which both Irish and Indian nationalists thought about each other’s struggle in coextensive and interchangeable terms. This chapter describes the cooperation and fraternisation between the Berlin India Committee and members of the Friends of Irish Freedom based in Europe. It also looks at the webs of exchange and interaction between Irish Republicans and members of the Ghadar Party based in America. These connections were closely followed by British intelligence authorities who were concerned by the collaboration between both nationalist movements.
